Russia’s Crimea TV to add to Ukraine’s woes

Russia is establishing a new TV channel for the Ukraine and Turkey, ‘Millet’ (“Nation”) will go on air in November.

Initially, it will broadcast a 24-hour analogue terrestrial service but then go “international” on satellite.

Zaur Smirnov, the head of the Crimea government’s committee for nationalities and deportees, as reported by BBC Monitoring and Russian news agency RIA Novosti, said: “From the New Year we plan to have Millet broadcasting by satellite to enable us to serve places with potential audiences – Turkic peoples and Crimean Tatars,” Smirnov told Rossiya Segodnya radio, part of the same group as RIA Novosti.

“We will definitely broadcast to Ukraine, countries in Central Asia and Turkey, where there is strong demand for objective information about Crimea,” he said. “Our primary purpose is to launch a news service that will tell the truth about Crimea.”

Millet and a radio station, Vatan Sedasy (Voice of the Homeland), are part of the Crimean Tatar Public Broadcasting Company, which was set up in June with Rub177 million in financial support from the federal government in Moscow. They replace ATR TV, Meydan radio and other privately-owned media that went off-air in April after failing to obtain broadcasting licences from Crimea’s Kremlin-backed authorities, adds BBC Monitoring.